Prestigious Manchester office building sold for around £30m
Columbia Threadneedle Investments has sold the prestigious Manchester city centre home of a chunk of the city’s Rainmakers community for a portion of £41.65 million, along with a London property.
It describes 82 King Street, Manchester as “a capital intensive, multi-let city-centre office holding of 83,500 sq. ft. and the largest single office holding remaining in the portfolio.”
Agents from Metis were understood to be seeking offers of £30m for the building as Columbia Threadneedle sought to reduce the property portfolio’s exposure to the office sector.
The fully-occupied building includes 19 separate commercial office suites within a Grade I listed former banking hall alongside a tower constructed in 1996. The contracts for the sale with an as yet unnamed buyer have been exchanged with completion due in September 2024.
Current tenants in the building include private equity firms Inflexion and LDC, private bank Arbuthnot Latham, NM Rothschild, and Zeus Capital.
In a stock market notice from the Columbia Theadneedle’s listed entity Balanced Commercial Property Trust PLC this morning, Richard Kirby, Fund Manager of BCPT, didn’t say who the building had been sold to, but said: “We have now disposed of six office holdings since December 2023 and these two office sales were at an opportune point in the asset life cycle to optimise exit value. The pricing achieved further underlines the liquidity in the portfolio, despite the challenging market backdrop for the office sector.”
